As 58 million people across 13 states sweated through the third day of a heat wave last month, power demand in North America’s largest regional grid jurisdiction hit a record high. And yet there was no shortage, no rolling blackout and no brownout in an area that stretches from Maryland to Chicago.

But that may not be the case in the future as stricter air quality rules are put in place. Eastern utilities satisfied demand that day — July 21 — with hefty output from dozens of 1950s and 1960s coal-burning power plants that dump prodigious amounts of acid gases, soot, mercury and arsenic into the air. Because of new Environmental Protection Agency rules, and some yet to be written, many of those plants are expected to close in coming years.

While the “dump prodigious amounts of acid gases, soot, mercury and arsenic into the air” is pure exaggeration (e.g., U.S. coal fired-power plants are responsible for only about 0.5% of global mercury emissions which is 99+% less than Mother Nature emits), the article’s basic point is not.

Moreover, as the real threat to public health during heat waves is the lack of air conditioning (as opposed to air quality), it is the EPA that threatens public health, not coal-fired plants. As reported by USA Today in September 2003,

The death toll in France from August’s blistering heat wave has reached nearly 15,000, according to a government-commissioned report released Thursday, surpassing a prior tally by more than 3,000… The bulk of the victims — many of them elderly — died during the height of the heat wave, which brought suffocating temperatures of up to 104 degrees in a country where air conditioning is rare. [Emphasis added]

Psychological projection occurs when someone thinks others are acting like they actually are — e.g., the adulterer who accuses a spouse of sleeping around.

Ironically, then, the Environmental Projection Agency will actually do what it alleges ambient air quality does — i.e., kill Americans.

Robert may be right on, either be design or by law of ;unintended consequences. Get rid of AC, more oldsters die, Medicare saves on
medical care. Is this a win, win or what? Maybe for the totalitarians, but not so much for the oldsters.

With respect to the air conditioning (AC) issue (include refrigeration also) we could get at least a 10% improvement in our use of electrical energy (an efficiency improvement for some applicaions of over 15%) by bringing back Freon (chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs) as a refrigerant. To my knowledge (a University staff reseach position in the 1970s) the banning of CFCs is on a par with the Global Warming (GW) hox and perhaps an early template for the initial success of the GW issues claimed to be “created by man”. To the best of my knowledge, a well-explained mechanism for getting a heavier-than-air CFC gas from ground level to the edge of the earth’s atmosphere of the south pole region with meaninful concentration has never been properly linked to the destruction of the ozone layer and the creation of the “ozone hole”.

So, lets open up a new front of debate: Could quickly improve the efficiency of our air conditioning systems with CFCs again and perhaps offset the closing of coal fired plants, if they should be cloased at all, both here and in of course China…

CFCs do destroy ozone in a labratory environment. However, at high altitudes where the sun’s energy IS ALREADY CREATING OZONE by an interaction with atmospheric oxygen, the role of even small levels of CFCs is challenging to explain.

We can work to clean the air without these regulations meant to destroy industry. In fact, the free market has already developed clean coal. But of course that has been demonized by the environuts. Again, I’m all for cleaning the environment because we do need to do that, but we need to do it responsibly

Bob, I challenge your statement about ammonia. A simple question – why then did commercial refridgeration companies all move to freon way before the environuts forced any changes?? If ammonia was competitive we would be using it now.

I ammend my statement Bob. Ammonia is still in use in many large commercial sized applications. Apparently it has more to do with the equipment to do the compression/expansion and cars and fridges are not amenable to the types used in large scale applications. Still…

How do you stop the EPA?? Defund them!! The House is responsible for appropraitions bills. They need to decide that they will not pass one bill that includes the EPA and several other unConstitutional departments in the funding!! Without the funding the President will have to go completely outside the limits of government to provide any funding by diverting it from other areas. Either that or they run out of money due to NO budget being passed!! Would make great theatre!! We could probably start a reality TV show based on Congressional activities on the subject!!